Alters When it Alteration Finds
by Kat Morning
Summary: Teenagers sometimes do foolish things, even running off to join the war. That doesn't mean they have to go off and do it alone.


**Disclaimer: **Rurouni Kenshin is owned by Watsuki Nobuhiro, Shonen Jump, and probably several other companies I'm being too lazy to look up just now.

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**Alters When It Alteration Finds**

For a long moment, Hiko considered it - considered turning around and leaving the boy to his ideological idiocy and see if the brat would go through with his words. Taking on a student meant taking on his own death, but taking on Kenshin as a student seemed determined to make that death by aggravated ulcer. His pride wasn't about to bend before the maelstrom of his apprentice's temper.

Hiko felt at his bruised cheek with his tongue, tasting the coppery blood from where he'd partially bitten through at the brat's sheathed strike. The roaring of the waterfall matched the snarl of his own temper as he felt furious violet eyes boring into the back of his head. The boy hadn't left, yet, still waiting for his master's approval on a mad and ultimately futile scheme.

Ideals weren't what a swordsman fought for. People were - people that those ideals were constructed to protect. The Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu was the strongest, the purest form of deadly elegance. It wasn't something he would see wasted on sterilized ideals and nebulous hopes. He would be _damned_ before he'd allow all his hard work to be wasted by the slathering dogs of the government.

The knot of his fury cracked, and Hiko found another idea ribboning its way through his mind. His student was hell-bent on protecting people even at the cost of his own training. Training that was Hiko's responsibility, and he alone would determine when Kenshin was finished, but let it never be said that a genius of his caliber _required_ the relative comfort of the mountain in order to mold his student into an imperial dragon.

They'd be gone for months, at the very least, thrown into the bloody firestorm of the government's latest revolution. But wars and governments came and went and seeing that would be enough to remake the boy's idealistic naiveté into the true soul of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Hiko turned, a dry smile stretching the corner of his mouth as he met his baka deshi's determined glare, and held it. "Then come on, baka deshi, let's go."

Kenshin blinked at him, violet eyes wide before narrowing in determination. His feet shifted as he slid into the battoujutsu stance and his had hovered over the hilt of his katana, waiting for his master's attack. Hiko brushed past him, the edges of his white cloak whipping across Kenshin's face, startling the boy out of his stance and he pivoted to watch Hiko continue on to the cabin.

Kenshin's hand fell lax to his side and he hesitated, looking down the path away from home before taking hesitant steps towards the familiar door. "Shishou?"

Kenshin ducked through the door, eyes adjusting just fast enough for him to grab a bundle of cloth Hiko lobbed at him before it hit him in the face.

"Pack," the older man ordered brusquely. A second traveling sack sat open beside him and he was methodically filling it like he did before those times he dragged his hapless student away from the mountains of Kyoto and off to Kobe or Itami for a new or better supply of saké. Hiko now was lingering over and stowing away more things than they would need for a week's absence from the cabin.

"Pack?" Kenshin finally echoed.

"Yes, idiot, pack," Hiko repeated. "It's early enough for us to get a few miles in before sundown."

Suspicion began bubbling in Kenshin's chest and he threw the travelling sack to the floor. "I am not _restless_, Shishou. And sake will not fix this. The people are suffering and dying away from this mountain, and I'm going to help them! If not now, then _when_?"

Hiko finished packing the last of the things that couldn't be replaced, and knotted the ties with deft hands before settling back on his heels and looking up at his smoldering apprentice. "You," he pointed at Kenshin's chest, "are being naïve. Not that I think you're capable of being anything but a supernal idiot, but you want to go help the people and you have no idea what that means. I," he shifted so he was pointing at his own chest, "am not in the mood to beat sense into your thick head today. If you want to experience the suffering of all the other idiots out there, then you'll get exactly that, baka deshi. I can train you just as easily on the road as here."

"We're leaving?" Kenshin hazarded, glancing from the sack crumpled forlornly at his feet and back up to his master. "Now?"

"As I said," Hiko grunted and stood, scooping up his travel sack in one fluid motion. "Pack. Or come with nothing."

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**Kat's notes:** I've wondered what would happen if Hiko just didn't let his 13-year-old apprentice walk off unsupervised. The answer ended up being that the wandering starts earlier. I'll admit that I'm a Hiko fangirl, and I enjoy his relationship with Kenshin. I think they're good for one another, even if they drive each other crazy.

Also, I'm cleaning out a backlog of ficlets and fics that I've got kicking around my LiveJournal, including a few more in this setting. So expect to see a bit more ficcage from me in the near future.


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